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Wikipitaka:Manual of Style
Because most of our contents are suttas and Tipitaka passages, we would like to keep page style consistent, for ease of use and navigation. This page contains some guidelines of desirable page style, including Categorization, the Passage, Disclaimer, Alternative Transaltions, and See Also links. Header Categorization On top of every scripture page, there is a categorization line that shows the place of that scripture in the Tipitaka. The categorization usually goes: Tipitaka » one of the three Pitakas » subcategory For example, on the top of the Yamakavagga page shows: Tipitaka » Sutta Pitaka » Khuddaka Nikaya » Dhammapada This means, Yamakavagga is a subtopic of Dhammapada which is in Khuddaka Nikaya (The Minor Collection), a chapter in Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the three pitakas (baskets) of the Tipitaka. Categorizations of some passages are more compliated than others; the only thing to keep in mind here is to keep it specific. Or you can always see some examples that others have created. PTS citation In Buddhist Study, Pali Text Society citation of the Tipitaka is accepted as standard. However, because we are not using such PTS numbering in our translation, we need to have a PTS citation on the top of each passage for reference use. Therefore, we put PTS citation of each passage on top of the wiki page. About the style, we prefer it to be: PTS: (the citation) Source Sometimes, you may transcribe some passages from somewhere else (e.g. books, webpage). Proper citation is necessary. So, please say briefly where you get the passage from, and if you changed something on it, you might want to say "adapted from ..." Passage Because the Tipitaka passages are segmented into items by their compositional structures, we would like to keep the numbering consistent. Altough Pali Text Society (PTS) has set up the standard numbering for the Tipitaka, it is not useful on the web. We prefer to keep all of the numbering within one passage. That is, in each passage, start with number 1, 2 ,3, ... If it is necessary to continue the numbering across passages, please make sure that it is consistent through out the group. Alternative Translations Even though we like to make Wikipitaka the best translation of the Tipitaka, there is alwasys a need to compare many translations of a passage to get the true meaning of the passage. Below are some outside sources that might contain an alternative translation: * www.accesstoinsight.org: one of the most complete, reliable collection of Pali Canon, put together by * Online Tipitaka: a translation from Burmese Tipitaka by Dr. Maung M. Lwin. Starting eight years ago, it is still an ongoing attempt to complete the translation. The website uses yahoo e-mail list as a discussion forum, yet there has been no respond from other member beside Dr. Lwin himself recently. We doubt that this attempt will succeed before our project. * www.metta.lk: The collection contains Pali, Sinhala, and English translations. The English collection is by various authors from other sources in the Internet. * www.tipitaka.com: a complete Thai translation of the Tipitaka. * www.palikanon.com: an incomplete German translation of the Tipitaka. You may use bullet point to list every available source. See Also See Also is the place where other derivative of the sutta go. Even though you are not writing any of these, it is always helpful to put a link to "significance" and/or "commentaries" of the sutta. The title of these derivative should be in the form name of the sutta:Significance . Disclaimer If you copy the passage from somewhere else, please put a proper disclaimer in this section. For example, if you take the passage from Access to Insight, you may put: Access to Insight edition © (year). '' ''Wikipitaka edition © 2006. '' ''For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish, however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and other derivative works be clearly marked as such.